SUBJECT: They ruined my life, but cured my cold!             FILE: UFO448


04-30-91 COHOES, N.Y. ALIENS GIVE ABDUCTEE GOOD HEALTH, BAD WORK
RECORD!

Cruel-To-Be-Kind Space Magi Implant Disease-Killing Licorice Stick!
Jobless Victim Laments: `They Ruined My Life, But Cured My Cold!'

Were life a supermarket tabloid, those headlines'd sum up Richard
Price's story. When he was 8, aliens did take him aboard their ship.
They did implant a substance soft, like stale licorice in his stomach,
an implant that seemed to keep him healthy. They did spoil his employment
prospects, messing up his mind so he couldn't hold a job. Really.

A Florida insurance company took his story so seriously it agreed
to pay off on a prank UFO abduction insurance policy. Price's getting
$10 million-a dollar a year for 10 million years. UFO devotees &
skeptics agree that Price probably believes his own story. UFO believers
say they can't absolutely prove it, but they're willing to accept
his tale. Skeptics say they don't have to prove anything that Price
proves he's a kook every time he opens his mouth. Family, friends,
psychiatrists these were the first to disbelieve Price's tale. His
parents warned himn't to talk about it; he kept talking, so they
stuck him in a mental hospital when he was 17.

"I finally denied it all just to get out. After that, I kind of kept
it quiet." Lately, Price's begun talking again about his alleged
abduction Sept. 23, 1955 & people're starting to, well, almost believe
him. "We've no reason to disbelieve him," says Budd Hopkins, author
of the 1987 bestseller "Intruders" about alien visitations. "I've
seen nothing that'd make me doubt that he's simply telling the truth."
Retired University of Kentucky psychologist Robert Baker, who's written
scholarly articles debunking UFO abduction claims, says Price's a
harmless crank. People who make such claims're what psychologists
once called "simple schizophrenics. They're not very bright, & they've
to've some explanation for their inadequacies." Like other UFO abduction
claimants, Price's involvement with aliens' an ongoing thing. Price
says that while driving a cab, he saw 2 glowing beings in a house.
After seeing them, he suffered a 3-hour memory lapse during which
aliens may've abducted him again, or at least stiffed him on cab
fare. Price also thinks he's being trailed by 1 of the MIBs-Men In
Black: human automatons with black clothes & glasses who try to intimidate
UFO abductees into silence.

"I've never heard of a UFO case that can't be explained in prosaic
or earthly terms," says Philip J. Klass, whose book "UFO Abductions:
A Dangerous Game" has become something of a bible for UFO skeptics.
If anyone can prove otherwise, he'll refund the full purchase price
of all his books. He's also offered $10,000 for proof of an alien
abduction. Confirmation by the FBI'll satisfy him. Instead of aliens
doing the kidnapping, "I could sooner believe that they're ghosts
or poltergeists or some of Santa Claus' mischievous elves." Skeptics
& believers admit Price's a troubled man.

Price says "UFO stress" has kept him from holding a job for more
than a decade. The incident's hurt his marriage, & his UFO claim
embarrasses his wife & 3 sons. Price says he wants to see the aliens
again & ask "'What did you do this for, why did you screw up my life?'
If they're that advanced, it seems like they'd try to do something
to help the person they're abducting." The villains're not aliens
but people such as Hopkins, who perpetuate "this type of stupidity
& nonsense," Baker says. "Through their naivete & lack of understanding
of human psychology, they've ballooned this thing into a national
headache." Abduction stories appear throughout history, tailored
to the whimsies of the times.

In the Middle Ages, people claimed flying dragons swooped down &
abducted them. Later, fairies & trolls did the kidnapping. In the
late 1800s, stories appeared of aliens in spaceships like the early
dirigibles. In the 1940s, spaceships were transformed into the flying
saucers popularized by science fiction pulp magazines. That's the
kind of craft Price describes.

While playing in a cemetery by his home in nearby Troy, N.Y., Price
claims, 2 helmeted aliens in red & blue uniforms took him aboard
their ship. He couldn't resist, as if his will'd been sapped. The
aliens, with pinkish-gray skin & about 4 to 5 feet tall, showed him
a movie then'd him undress so they could examine him. They inserted
the implant a 4-millimeter-long chunk of dark material & told him
to leave it alone or he'd die. It lay visible just below the skin
until 1989, when it broke through & popped out, he says. Until then,
Price says, he'd been healthy & thinks the implant may've had something
to do with it. Since the implant came out, he's suffered persistent
colds.

The implant's intrigued UFO investigators. A Massachusetts Institute
of Technology physicist's run tests on the substance but says he hasn't
yet identified it. "I don't know if it's animal, vegetable or mineral,"
says the physicist, who asked that his name be withheld. While Price
"is a little bit of a crackpot," the physicist says he hopes the
implant'll prove to be genuine. "Finding other intelligent life in
the universe'd be completing the Copernican revolution." Implants're
common in abductees' stories, though Price's among the first UFO
investigators've been able to study. UFO researchers theorize implants
may be like radio tags humans use to track wildlife.

Price's story's 1 of at least 1,000 reported cases of people who
claim aliens took'em aboard their spaceships. 1 of Price's fellow
travelers' Ed Walters of Gulf Breeze, Fla., a building contractor
who thinks aliens took him on a joyride in 1988. Walters says he
was photographing UFOs when he suffered a 90-minute memory lapse.
Under hypnosis, he recalled being taken aboard a spaceship. "It's
kind of good I didn't have any conscious recall. If I could remember
all that stuff, I'm sure it'd be very disturbing."

David Jacobs, a history professor at Temple University in Philadelphia,
says he & Hopkins've been awarded a grant to find out how many people've
been abducted by aliens. Jacobs won't say how much the grant was
& identifies the source of the money as a "Las Vegas financier" who
wants to remain anonymous.

The details of abductees' stories're generally hazy, a sign that
they're not fabricating the tales. If they were imagining it, dreaming
or just plain faking, "every story'd be rich & filled with idiosyncratic
situations from their own lives. We know this from hallucination
& fantasy studies." In abductee accounts, the aliens seem bored,
like medical technicians tired of taking X-rays. "These creatures
don't seem to've the sensitivity of humans. They've a job to do &
they do it," says Walter Andrus, director of the Mutual UFO Network
in Seguin, Texas. "We're not talking about the standard science fiction
contact, where 2 equals meet in a dramatic situation & exchange presents.
We're talking about exploitation. Humans're just specimens." Abductees're
not publicity seekers, investigators say. Of 300 abductees Hopkins'
studied, only 9 have allowed their names to be used.

Price does seek publicity, hoping it'll vindicate him. Surprise,
he's writing a book. He doesn't feel as if he's cashing in; he figures
the aliens owe him. Lately, he's gotten some dubious national attention.
He appeared on the TV tabloid show "Hard Copy" & Joan Rivers' talk
show & was written up in UFO Universe, the supermarket tabloid of
UFO magazines. Among the magazine's cover stories: "Elvis Presley's
Mysterious UFO Connection" & "Strange Pregnancies! What Do Aliens
Want With Our Women?" The purveyors of such headlines "used to be
people looking for God. Now it's aliens," says UFO skeptic Baker.
"They're looking for aliens instead of God, or Jesus, or Moses, or
Napoleon. They're to be pitied. They're unfortunate people."

          
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